Smartphone Sales Up by 47 Percent; Android Dominates

Although worldwide phone sales decreased during the third quarter of 2012, sales of smartphones are continuing to rise, with Android spearheading the competitive market. More than 427 million phones were sold in the period, representing a decrease of 3 percent when compared to the same quarter a year ago, according to analyst Gartner. It is, however, a slight increase from the 419 million devices shipped during the second quarter.

Smartphone sales are continuing to flourish, though. An accumulative of 169 million smartphones were sold during the quarter, which is a considerable increase of 47 percent year-on-year. The top three vendors for sales during the quarter are Samsung, Apple and Nokia. The latter, though, had its market share slip by over 20 percent when compared to last year. It fell from 23.9 percent in Q3 2011 to 19.2 percent in this year's third quarter. Meanwhile, Apple and Samsung's market share both enjoyed an increase.


Google's Android mobile operating system continues to lead the smartphone market, with 72.4 percent of all smartphones sold in the quarter shipping with Android installed. This represents an increase from 52.5 percent last year. Apple's iOS follows in a distant second place with a 13.9 percent share.

Microsoft's Windows Phone saw its share increase from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 2.4 percent in the current quarter. Surprisingly, Samsung's Bada mobile operating system has passed Symbian's market share with a 3 percent share, an increase from 2.2 percent last year.

"After two consecutive quarter of decline in mobile phone sales, demand has improved in both mature and emerging markets as sales increased sequentially," Gartner principal research analyst Anshul Gupta said. "In China, sales of mobile phones grew driven by sales of smartphones, while demand of feature phones remained weak. In mature markets, we finally saw replacement sales pick up with the launch of new devices in the quarter."

Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback

  • so in other words, Apple is getting donkey punched in the smart phone buisness still by android, and samsung.

    Now we all see why apple sued em.
    Reply
  • kdw75
    I am surprised Apple doesn't just buy Samsung.
    Reply
  • killerclick
    Microsoft is kicking ass at 2.4%
    WP8 FTW!
    Reply
  • ben850
    Can you really count free phones as sales?
    Reply
  • Azn Cracker
    ben850Can you really count free phones as sales?they arn't free. It comes with a 2 year contract
    Reply
  • ROFL, apple could NEVER afford to buy out samsung. dont kid yourself kdw75. a

    Samsung makes all the shit apple needs to make their crappy products.
    Reply
  • bystander
    killerclickMicrosoft is kicking ass at 2.4%WP8 FTW!Those are WP7 numbers. WP8 just released this month. We'll have to see Q4 to see how WP8 does.
    Reply
  • If they could afford to buy samsung, they would make their own LCD, memory, ram, motherboard, hell the whole phone. and save billions, instead they sue "samsung" for making their own products because god forbid them "sell a phone, tablet, anything" without the Lame ass apple logo on it ey? even though they make the product for them slimebags.

    Apple without steve ripoff ideas jobs, is dead like a dog with 2 legs.
    Reply
  • Hell even if steve jobs had sex with jesus, that company would not be able to afford samsung.
    Reply
  • bystander
    Apple is likely able to afford Samsung, but I highly doubt that Samsung wants to sell their company.
    Reply